


(un)steady

by stammiviktor



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dadkov, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Sports Injury Recovery, Vomiting, Yakov Is Secretly Very Soft Inside, Young Victor Nikiforov, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor
Summary: “For God’s sake, Vitya, you’retrashed.”
Relationships: Yakov Feltsman & Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 53
Kudos: 205





	(un)steady

_ December, 2005 _

When he closes his eyes, he feels like he’s doing a spin—a camel spin, maybe, or a Biellman. The point is that he’s going around and around _ very _ fast and, unlike on the ice, he has no idea how to stop. He grips the side of the couch and giggles, despite himself. On the ground beside him he hears Makkachin yip in response.

“C’mere girl,” he slurs, patting his stomach lazily. She obeys, jumping on top of him, so big now that she covers the majority of his torso and thighs. There’s a dull, percussive sensation as her tail thumps against his cast. “You smell bad. M’be you need a… need a bath. D’you need a bath, Mak- Makkachin’ka?” 

“Vitya.”

Viktor’s eyes fly open, though he doesn’t remember closing them. Makkachin is asleep on top of him, so she didn’t say his name. Besides, the voice sounded grumpy. Very stern. Which means—

“Yakov!"

Viktor tilts his head backward on the couch’s armrest, which might have been uncomfortable on his neck if his body were particularly receptive to pain at the moment. Yakov’s form looms over him. He has his arms crossed.

“You’re home!”

“I was supposed to be home hours ago. The train got delayed. It’s nearly midnight.”

“Oh, s’it— s’it the eighteenth already?” The eighteenth, Yakov returns. The twenty-fifth, Viktor’s birthday, seventeen entire years old. The twenty-seventh, Lilia returns from her choreographing work in Paris. Then the New Year and Christmas, happy 2006, and then Yakov and all Viktor’s rinkmates leave again for Nationals—

“Yes. And you are drunk.”

Viktor hiccups. “Only a li’l bit.”

“Get up. You are not sleeping on the couch. You will hurt your back. And your neck.”

“Slept here last night. And the night before. Felt fine.” That’s a lie. His spine felt like a wind-up toy in the morning, but he simply hadn’t had the motivation to make the trek to his bedroom at the end of the hall. It was cold in there, and empty. At least the living room had a TV to flicker light in his periphery and give him something to listen to besides the hum of the radiator.

Yakov picks up the remote and the TV goes black. The living room is intolerably dark; Viktor can hardly see a thing. 

“I will not have my best skater screwing up his back before he’s even skated a full year in seniors.”

“M’not your best skater.” Viktor hasn’t skated in three weeks, and won’t step on the ice for at least two full months more. 

“Well, you will be. Now sit up.”

Viktor tries. His head spins. Makkachin jumps off of his chest as Yakov hooks his arms under Viktor’s and pulls him upright, the movement making Viktor gasp.

“For God’s sake, Vitya, you’re  _ trashed.” _

“Tha’s not a very nice thing t’say to your future  _ best skater _ ~!”

“There’s no way you’re going to be able to make it to your room on crutches.”

“Mm, no. Prob’ly not.”

The couch disappears from under him in a swift, head-spinning movement. His hands grasp tightly around Yakov’s shirt, clinging for dear life. Yakov still has his coat on and is covered in a light dusting of snow. 

In another life, Viktor was a pair skater. He would have loved to do lifts, they always looked like so much fun, maybe he could try learning—

“You are  _ not _ learning lifts,” Yakov grumbles.

“You’re no fun. I should have found a coach that was more fun.”

“Yes, and I am sure you would be having a lot of _ fun _ at regional competitions if you had.”

“Uh, Yakov?”

“What?”

“I, um. I don’t feel…” Viktor swallows. Tries to figure out which way is down so he can lean over and— “I’m going to throw up.”

Yakov utters an expletive that he once made Georgi do thirty push-ups for using at the rink. The world spins worse for a few hectic moments before Viktor finds himself sitting on cold tile, his bulky broken ankle stuck out awkwardly next to him and his chin resting on a toilet seat. Grateful, he vomits. His bangs are in his eyes for a quick moment before Yakov pulls them back, holding all of Viktor’s long hair in the palm of his hand while Viktor retches and retches. It smells like vodka. 

“M’sorry,” Viktor groans into the toilet bowl the moment he catches a breath.

“What were you thinking? What if I hadn’t been here to help you? Would you have been sick all over Lilia’s persian rug? Or her antique sofa? Or would you have fallen asleep and choked—”

“M’sorry. I didn’t mean to. Nothing else to do.”

“Nothing else? Seriously? I left you alone for just five days. You could have watched TV, or read, or done  _ anything  _ else besides drink the rest of my best vodka.”

“I was bored.”

“Foolish boy. This is not how you get better, by throwing yourself a pity party.”

“M’not pity partying.” 

“That is certainly what it looks like. You want to skate again? Take care of yourself.”

Viktor is quiet. He retches, but nothing comes up. He closes his eyes, rests his cheek on the toilet seat and watches the world spin, slower now than before. Gentle fingers comb through his hair, and he thinks for a moment that he must be imagining it, but it feels so real. He revels in it, hums, leans into the touch.

“Are you okay now?”

“Mhm.” Viktor doesn’t open his eyes as Yakov picks him up off of the bathroom floor like a seventeen-year-old, seventy-kilogram child. Yakov smells like the inside of both a train station and an ice rink, which is oddly comforting and better, at least, than the smell of regurgitated vodka. The stark light of the bathroom gives way to disorienting darkness as his coach carries him down the hall to his bedroom, depositing him on the bed. His cast bounces against the mattress. 

The room is as cold as he expected due to the faulty radiator that keeps his room a few degrees cooler than the rest of the apartment, but now he welcomes the cool pillowcase against his flushed cheeks. Makkachin curls up in the middle of the bed next to him, all gentle weight and warm fur. She whines and rests her head in the crook of his elbow.

Yakov leaves and Viktor thinks that will be the end of it, but he returns a minute later with a glass of water, some ibuprofen, and a painted decorative bowl Lilia usually fills with fruit. He places them all on Viktor’s bedside table, illuminated by the orange glow coming from his window. Outside, the light-polluted city of Piter is covered in freshly fallen snow. He shouldn’t go outside in it, his cast will get wet, but he wants to. Maybe tomorrow he’ll ask Yakov, if he doesn’t take off to the rink first thing leaving Viktor all alone again. But Yakov probably isn’t likely to indulge him after this. Viktor has already inconvenienced him enough, and he’s only just got home.

Yakov sits on the edge of the mattress, the movement making Viktor’s head spin once again. He hopes Lilia won’t be mad if he pukes in her bowl.

“Vitya…” Yakov sighs, his gruff voice gone soft around the edges. “This is just a setback. Every skater has setbacks.”

“Maybe.”

“I know you are disappointed—”

“It was supposed to be my year.” His senior debut, fresh off a brilliant season in juniors where he swept every competition he entered, then earning gold at his first senior Grand Prix assignment before one day in practice,  _ snap,  _ just like that on a  _ triple flip _ of all jumps, and he’s laying on the ice crying and he can’t, can’t get  _ up— _

“I know.” Yakov lays a hand on Viktor’s shoulder. “I wish it were different, too.”

Viktor’s eyes burn, his swirling vision going blurry. “I want to go back,” he whispers. He hasn’t said any of this to Yakov before, didn’t want his coach to think he was a sniveling crybaby, but— “If I hadn’t— If I had just had a little more speed I would have landed it, I want to go back and _ fix it.” _

“You can’t blame yourself. Every skater gets injured, it’s a risk you have to take.”

Viktor’s fingers ball into a fist around his comforter. “I know, I  _ know.”  _ Hot tears leak down his temples onto his pillow. That’s three times in three weeks he’s cried in front of Yakov, more than he’s ever cried in front of any other person in the world. Viktor breathes in and out through his teeth, trying to will his foggy mind to work properly again. Fuck the vodka for putting him in this situation. Fuck  _ himself  _ for having been so unbearably lonely that he drank it all in the first place.

“I need to skate, Yakov.”

“You will.”

“In  _ two months.” _

“Take this time to relax. Do your physio, read a book, go to the movies, play with your smelly dog. Live your life outside the rink.”

Viktor swallows and looks up at Yakov with his bleary eyes, willing them to focus. His open mouth moves with half-formed words he doesn’t end up saying. Viktor outside the rink, Viktor without skating?

“I don’t even know what that means for me.”

Yakov takes Viktor’s hand, the one bunched in a fist around his blanket, and pries his fingers open one by one until they begin to relax. 

“You are more than just ice skating, Vitya.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“That is because right now, you are in a bad place. You are restless and bored and very sad. But even if you never skated again—which you  _ will— _ you would be alright. You are a very bright and passionate boy. You love food and books and traveling and dogs more than any other person I know. You have the eye and the heart of an artist. Trust your coach. You are much more than just skating, Vitya.”

The tears stop instantly; that is how shocked Viktor is by Yakov’s little speech. His drunken mind grasps at the words, trying desperately to commit them to memory. When he wakes, he may not remember exactly what Yakov said, but he will remember this feeling forever—of warmth, of reassurance, like Yakov’s steady arms picking him up off of the bathroom floor and carrying him to bed.

“You are getting cabin fever, I think. This is my fault for leaving you so long in a fourth-floor walk-up while you are on crutches. I am not working tomorrow, I gave everyone a rest day after the GPF. We will go somewhere, yes? Get some fresh air.” 

Viktor gives him a wet smile. “That would be nice.”

“Get some sleep. You will feel better in the morning. Or… perhaps not physically. But we have the Feltsman hangover cure for that.”

Yakov squeezes Viktor’s hand lightly before standing up, the mattress shifting again beneath him. Makkachin squirms, repositioning her head on Viktor’s shoulder. Her wet tongue licks away the tears from his temples. 

“Goodnight,” he whispers to her and to Yakov, and falls asleep almost as soon as he closes his eyes.

* * *

The Feltsman hangover cure turns out to be the world’s most disgusting cocktail: a shot of pickle juice, two shots of tomato juice, a quick squeeze of lemon, and a raw egg. Viktor finds it waiting for him on the kitchen counter when he finally crutches out of his room at ten in the morning, just as the winter sun is rising. Yakov gets up from the couch and follows Viktor to the kitchen as if he has something he needs to do, then proceeds to hover idly until Viktor finishes his abomination of a beverage. 

“Good.” Yakov takes the glass and washes it immediately, not letting Viktor lift a finger. “How do you feel?”

“Not as bad as I thought I would.” Better than last night, certainly—both physically and emotionally—though he does feel vaguely nauseated. 

“How much do you remember?” 

“It’s foggy,” Viktor admits. “But… mostly everything.”

Yakov pauses as he dries the glass. “Right. Well. Don’t do that again, you understand? You are lucky I was there to help you.”

“I know, I am. I’m sorry.”

Yakov finishes drying the glass and places it in the cabinet by the refrigerator. Then he stands there, awkward and empty-handed for a brief moment.

Viktor hops over on his crutches before Yakov can say anything else and wraps him in a hug.

“Thank you, Yakov. I mean it.”

Yakov relaxes in Viktor’s arms, heaving what sounds like a defeated sigh but Viktor knows to be a sign of affection. He even hugs Viktor back, one of his hands patting the back of Viktor’s head, where he had held Viktor’s hair just last night. 

Viktor expects him to reply with something gruff and stoic, deflecting any and all vulnerability away from him. Instead, Yakov says:

“For you, it is nothing.”

Viktor’s breath catches. He tries, with everything he has, to commit every detail of this moment to memory. 

“Now go get dressed. You’re going to help me run some errands and we are wasting daylight as we speak.”

“Yes, Yakov,” Viktor replies, a brilliant smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little something to shake off the writer's block! I hope you enjoyed, please leave a comment and let me know what you think :)
> 
> Thank you so much to [Kaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazul9/pseuds/kazul9) for beta-ing and helping me think of a title <3 
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/) and [twitter!](https://twitter.com/stammiviktor)


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